


A Christmas Carol

by Chubbycubby



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Cute, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 18:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16816075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chubbycubby/pseuds/Chubbycubby
Summary: “The Ghost of Christmas Present!” Reinhardt says, realizing Jesse is not up on his Charles Dickens. “Your friends are having a party for you. Touch my robe and we will be off.”





	A Christmas Carol

The biggest benefit of cleaning offices at night is the solitude, but this particular building was never empty. At McCree Accounting LLC, employees were constantly coming in miserably early, or staying painfully late. Even on Christmas Eve… You check your phone, noting it’s technically Christmas now… So on Christmas, even, the business owner is hunched over his desk doing what kind of work, you can’t imagine.

“You’re late,” Mr. McCree says gruffly.

“My contract is anytime between midnight and five,” you answer calmly for about the hundredth time.

He hated that smile, innocent to the cruelty of the world, speaking to him with pity for his robot arm and graying hair. You come into his office before starting your work, greeting him, “Merry Christmas!”

“Time is money,” he says, going back to his work, and ignoring you.

“Mr. McCree, you are in a mood tonight. You know you’re not my boss and I get paid the same no matter how short or long I take. What gives?”

“ _As if you don’t know,”_ he seethes to himself. He wants to go back to his work, but you’re clearly waiting for his attention so he must give it or you will never leave. “Drop off whatever crap you call a gift,” he demands, holding out his hand, and when you hesitate, he laughs at you, “Did you forget or did you finally stop carin’?

“Actually,” you say softly, nervously, “My family had to travel for Christmas… and I couldn’t join because of work… and, well, I don’t have anyone to celebrate with, so, I was wondering if you’d like to open gifts with me on Christmas morning…”

“Ha! HAHA!” he laughs long, hard, and loud. “So that’s what all these pleasantries are about. You’re just a gold digging whore looking for my money! To think I even gave you my phone number! To think of all this time that I put up with you and your stupid smile!” He laughs again despite the genuine tears in your eyes. “Get the hell outta of my sight.”

You bolt out of there sobbing, without a thought about work. Any time he had sent someone home in tears, he has had them fired, and Jesse regarded your termination as a gift to himself. To celebrate such soulless depravity his called on the only luxury in life he afforded himself, whiskey. Drinking it straight from the bottle, having broken his last glass a month ago, he screws on the cap after four hefty gulps, a moderate starter for such a heavy drinker.Just after he’s stowed it back in his desk, he hears the office door open.

“You feelin froggy?” he calls out, assuming the maid had come back to make her stand.

“Who’re you callin a _frog?_ ” he hears from a voice very much not yours, or anyone alive for that matter. Jesse knew Ashe to be dead; he had been at the funeral; he had seen the death certificate, and what’s more he was _there_ when she got hit by that train. Not much survives getting hit by a train. Yet here she was, looking pale and laden with chains, but in one piece.

“Elizabeth Ashe, as I live and breathe. You got hit by a train.”

“I know that! I’m a ghost, dumb ass.”

“No such thing.”

“Then how do you explain this?” she says with a hand flourish. “The bigger question why you can see me now but not before.”

“Don’t say that!”

“I saw you drop that Pop-tart on the ground the morning and eat in anyways,” she says with a smirk.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m here for you! And I’m here to warn ya Jesse; you’re fixing to end up in the same place as me, wandering the Earth to repent for my sins.”

“You? Repent?”

“Firstly, I’ll have you know that once you die, you understand what’s really important _real_ quick. Secondly, shut up and accept the divine intervention.”

“I’m dreaming,” he mutters to himself, “I need to wake up before I waste anymore time.”

Ashe groans with disgust. “Jesse, lemme spell it out: All you done in the last five years is cheat and rob people, and God has just about had it with you and your business.”

Like a disaffected lawyer, he replies, “Nothing I do is illegal.”

“You and I both know the law ain’t have anything to do with what’s right. You know what you’re doing is wrong: shortin’ honest people’s pay, hoarding all that money, making a sweet girl cry.”

“Bah.”

“Lookit these chains on me. I have been forced to wander the earth for years, without comfort or rest for my misdeeds. You’re worse than me, but you’re still alive. You still have time to fix this. That’s what this is all about.”

“So that’s what it is,” he says calmly, “You got a plea bargain.”

“I wish, but it don’t work like that.”

Jesse mutters to himself, “This is a hallucinationfrom food poisoning, or somethin.”

“Even if I am a hallucination, doncha think that’d _mean_ something, that I’m saying all these things?” she adds, her gestures frustrated.

“I’ve allowed others to seep into my mind far too much,” he grumbles, going back to his papers, wondering if he might sort out a problem in his dream so as to be more efficient.

“Jesse!” Ashe swats the papers from his hand “Listen! Tonight you will be visited by three spirits, and they _will_ set you right, so you don’t end up like me.”

“Why now?” he says, still unfazed.

“That sweet lady you made cry, of course. She’s your last hope.”

“Pft!”

“What happened to you? You used to be a real gentleman, even in your rowdier days. You woulda never thought t’talk t’a lady that way.”

“I woke up,” he answers bitterly, “I realized the world is as cold, hard, and dark as the people in it, and there’s no such thing as a free lunch, or a virtuous lady. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve already wasted enough time on loose women for the day.”

Her face twists in anger, her brow furrows as she steps out into the office, screeching, “B.O.B, DO SOMETHIN!”

The footsteps shake the office, and the last thing Jesse sees is a half-ton Omnic winding up for a sucker punch that knocks him out cold.

* * *

“Oh, Jesus,” he whimpers, coming to, hunched over his desk, with the worst headache of his life. He must have drank much more than he thought… Not that he didn’t recall his conversation with the long dead Ashe but that that was the only explanation for it.

“Jesse, good to see you!”

“Chief Medic Dr. Angela Ziegler,” he says if only because he was stunned by her appearance. He remembered blonde hair, but not that it shone so brightly as to mire her image in a confusing array of old and young features so that one’s eyes may never determine her age, or even ascertain quite where her body ended.

“Oh my. You were never this formal in the past,” she answers curiously, “And besides, Overwatch is disbanded, so I’m not chief medic anymore.”

“That light is so bright,” he mutters, “Can’cha respect a man’s hangover and put that cap on?”

“Excessive drinking is a sign of a depression,” Angela says, cap still in hand, “But my function here is not as a doctor but as the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Come again?”

“Oh! Did Miss Ashe not appear to you?”

“No, no, she did.”

“Then you _do_ know what’s going on,” Angela says, and though he voice is sweet and she glides through the desk, her grip on Jesse’s arm is strong as she drags him to the window. “I am the first of the three spirits to visit you.” With a snap of her fingers the window flies open.

“If you plan to kill me for the life insurance, know that I refuse to pay for a service I will never use,” McCree retorts.

Angela’s smile is unnervingly peaceful, and then she announces, “Okay! Out you go!” and despite being at least one hundred pounds lighter, she easilytosses him out the window, leaving himsuspended in the air. “See? You can float, because you have touched the heart of a good spirit-”

“Close the window or the heat will get out.”

“Speaking of heat,” she says, the light on her head shining so brightly he could not see below him until she finally capped her head. Angela may have gracefully landed on her feet, but Jesse hits the concrete ungracefully.

“It’s not hot,” he remarks as he gets to his feet, “but it’s certainly not London... Wait, I know this place. The sidewalks, all the scrub, the mailboxes lining the sidewalks...”

“Though you’ve tried to forget…” she says softly.

Despite being across the street, Jesse can hear every word of his parent’s argument, both in his ears and in his memory. A younger him leans on his bike, melancholy, while the older brother pedals up and down the block.

“Don’t sit’n listen to it,” the accountant calls out.

“He can’t hear you,” Angela says. “This is but a shadow of a memory.”

“Hey, why don’t we go around the block in our new bikes?” the young Jesse says, suddenly perking up.

“Mom and Dad said not to leave the front of the house…” the old one says, making another loop back on the small space of allowed concrete.

“Then it’s a race t’see who can get back before Mom and Dad notice.”

“You don’t even know how to ride a bike right,” his brother scoffs.

“Still ride it quick th’n you!”

“Yeah right!”

“That’s a good boy,” the elder says, watching the kids biking off, “Listenin t’that don’t do you any good.”

“You were still so cheerful, Jesse, and it wasn’t even the war that changed you.”

The world becomes as indistinct as her form, shifting in ways he couldn’t make sense of until it overwhelmed him all at once with its clarity. He remembers this room, Meeting Room D, but the tables are lined with food and they pushed in a couch to supplement the office chairs scattered around. The glow of the Christmas lights makes the large room glow warmly, and the people chatter about the handmade decorations crafted with care and the help of one energetic toddler who comes running to the very spot where McCree’s spirit had landed.

“Oh ho ho, you want Uncle Jesse, do ya?”

The specter jumps up, surprised to find his twenty-two year-old self sitting on the couch where he had just been. With two intact arms, Jesse lifts the little girl who laughs when he lifts her but babbles “Ga, Ga” while groping towards Commander Reyes to his left..

“Oh what! I’m not good enough for ya?! Is that it?” he says as he tosses her up and catches her one more time before handing her over.

“She knows I make her go higher,” Gabe says, giving Fareeha a high toss that makes her shrieks of delight fill the room.

The spirit reaches out for his old boss, touching his arm, but feeling no warmth, no sensation. It was enough just to be in his presence, not matter how much a dream this must be.

“Gabe!” Ana yells so sharply, that both the old and young Jesse withdraw in terror

“I’m telling you Ana, she’s gonna be an acrobat,” Gabe says, as the worried mother snatches her child from him.

“No, no, hopefully something far safer…” Ana mutters, bouncing her child on her hips.

“Up!” Fareeha says, with her arms raised in the air.

“Let’s go get cookies,” Ana says warmly, leading her daughter away from bad influences.

“Up! Up!”

“By the way, Jesse,” Gabe says to the cowboy, “Thanks.”

“You really liked that tie?”

“No- I mean- I do, but what I meant was,” Gabe broadly gestures, “this. I think we were starting to forget what we were fighting for.”

“Aw, y’all’re busy, I’m happy to help out.”

Gabe smiles, “You’ve really turned yourself around, Jesse. I’m proud of you.”

The accountant wishes anything to stay in this space, but the scene becomes as if ink was spilled over it. He grasps to hold onto a table, a handful of tinsel, but soon he was inside his office with nothing to show for it. He could look at the man and determine his age, but he didn’t care to. This could be any Christmas in the last five years, where he worked through the entire thing without much fanfare.

There’s a knock at the office door, and then you walk in without waiting for him to send you away. You have a whole plate full of food from your Christmas dinner, just like you promised. It’s warm, and good, and full of love, and he can still remember the taste. You pick from his plate and he protests, but then you reveal you brought cookies too. His heart, no matter how withered or dried, stirs, at once igniting his annoyance.

“I see what’s going on here,” McCree says, “Yer workin for her. Yer tryn’ta convince me t’split my money with her, and then you’ll get a cut. Don’t think I’m not onto yer ways, woman.”

“Jesse, I suggest you choose your next words very carefully,” Angela answers with strained politeness.

“Harpy.”

With a light twirl, Angela delivers a roundhouse kick to Jesse’s head, instantly knocking him out.

* * *

Jesse startles awake, still in his office, still with a head ache. Immediately he tries to log in to his computer, but it’s completelynon-responsive.

“So we’re still doing this…” he comments aloud, hoping God heard that.

“What was that, friend?” Reinhardt says in the doorway with a wave and a smile. The man is even larger than normal, carrying an enormous fiery torch. Reinhardt looks young with two eyes and blonde hair, drunk with his green velvet robe with white trim and rosy cheeks.

“Uh, nothing,” McCree responds prudently, “Who are you t’be, then?”

“The Ghost of Christmas Present!” Reinhardt says, realizing Jesse is not up on his Charles Dickens. “Your friends are having a party for you. Touch my robe and we will be off.”

“My associates are having a party for Christmas,” Jesse corrects him.

Wilhelm thinks a moment, and says, “Well Genji came all the way from Nepal to see you, this I know for sure.”

“For Christmas,” McCree insists, ignoring Wilhelm’s skeptical look, “He traveled for Christmas, and for what? To spend money on unnecessary trips when a phone call would do?”

“Take my robe, now,” Wilhelm insists, and suddenly remembering the burning torch, Jesse obeys, being spit out inside of a room where Angela Ziegler has just arrived.

“Genji! Oh it is so good to see you in-person again!” she says joyously, hugging the man very tightly, oblivious to her audience. “I will finally be able to calibrate your wrist again!”

McCree is fuming, but he refuses to give his host the satisfaction of being right, commenting, “See, Genji only came because there was something in it for him.”

“I have a gift for you,” Genji says to Angela.

“I have only just arrived, please let me get something to eat,” she says, “Oh, is Jesse here? He was in my dream last night…”

“He was invited but no one ever got a reply from him.”

“I had hoped to speak to him…” she whispers.

“I do not want to be angry with my friend, but after he told me to go fuck myself two years ago, on the anniversary of… you know. That was the last straw for me. He’s a mean drunk, and we’re all dead to him.” But Genji’s tone is not nearly as harsh as his words, and his eyes rest on a far away place.

“Maybe this year. Everyone is here” Angela says, her words more hopeful than she.

Jesse scoffs, declaring. “I have no more appetite for gossip and backstabbing!”

“You wish to go?” Wilhelm asks, peering down, one eye now grayed and scarred.

The image frightens the charge for a moment, but he collects himself to add please and nod.

“Certainly,” he answers much more cheerfully, “Touch my robe.”

Obeying the command puts him in an apartmentwith plush area rugs spread on the floor, a tree in the corner covered insparkly, plastic decorations, and TV playing How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Jesse’s eyes follow the glow of the screen backwards to the couch where a familiar woman sits.

“You’re working for her too,” he mutters under his breath.

Wilhelm pushes the man forward, and Jesse stumbles over his own feet to tumbles across the floor. Luckily, his ghostly form disturbs nothing, not even the package he would have otherwise crushed with his face. He props himself up on his hands and look down on it, his heart making an unexpected flip when he reads “Mr. McCree♥” on the tag. He wanted to admire it a long while, but you declare, “I guess I won’t need _th_ _at_ anymore” and get up from your place on the couch.

You snatch the package, tear through the paper and into the box to dig out a bottle of Johnie Walker. With little care for the two glasses it came with, you toss the packaging back to the tree where it lands next to a blue box. For some reason his eyes are drawn to the tag which reads, “From Mr. McCree”.

“She didn’t expect me to buy her gifts…” he mutters to himself, touching his heart because it felt strange and twisted in his chest.

He looks back to you, settling down on couch with your liquor and misery, declaring to the empty room, “New Christmas tradition, fuck everyone and drink.” You take an uncomfortably long swig, adding, “I promise myself and everyone else, before God, that I will stop caring for such a wretched, terrible, mean, man.” Your voice gets tight, and you take another drink, already a quarter of the bottle gone, and tears lining your eyes.

“No, no!” Jesse says, as your lonely sobs start to fill the room, “I don’t- You don’t,” he paced because he wanted to comfort you but in a ghostly form he had no effect. Distressed, he calls out, “Take me to where the only misery is my own. Please, I can’t stand this scene anymore.”

Without thought, Jesse grabs the robe, and the dull noise form the tellie is replaced by whistling cold winds. The sun is going down here, the shadows are long, Gibraltar base silent.

“Where are we?” McCree asks.

“You know this place,” the ghost says, now aged and tired, “The day grows old, and I, even older, friend.”

Jesse walks forward in the grass, wild and tall, except in two patches where granite grave markers gave no hold for roots. This is the place where his life stopped. Not the initial report, not the the funeral, not even the burial itself, but days later visiting this spot and reading the words engraved in the granite:

Rest in Peace

Gabriel Reyes

Voice dry, he says to his host, “I should be here…”

“Why?”

He head snaps up at the guardian, retorting, “It’s not fair, that he has to spend Christmas alone.”

“And you do?”

“Shut up!” Jesse yells, “Everyone thinks it’s easy but I don’t know how to go on without Gabe! He’s my father, and there’s so- s- so much I don’t _understand_ about what happened to him-” He had so much more to say but his emotions choked out his words.

Wilhelm kneels down, taking the man in for a long, firm hug, feeling tear drops on his shoulders. Jesse rushes to compose himself, pushing away once he was somewhat certain he woudn’t immediately come to sobs, remarking, “I hate this.”

The elderly man pats his head, saying, “There is still one more ghost, and I am certain he will bring you peace.”

“What makes you so certain?” Jesse says, although suddenly he finds it hard to keep his eyes open, like he was on the verge of blacking out.

“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” Wilhelm replies, ignoring the question as Jesse’s body slumps down, resting his head on Gabe’s tombstone, “but I think we all knew he would be the one to set you on the right path.

McCree’s mind says “who”, but his body is too tired to ask.

* * *

The utter silence of the office when he woke put Jesse in some kind of dread. No heating register, hum of fluorescent lights, papers shuffling, a cooling fan on his computer… nothing. No technology emits any light, and when he checks the window, the outside it blacker than pitch.

If his window showed no light, the closed office door piqued his fears. He remains stiff with indecision before the sound of approaching footsteps, a sound he would recognize anywhere: steel-toes and a heavy gait. He holds his breath when they stop in front of the door, but it doesn’t open. Instead, dust and smoke seep in from underneath, assembling inside the office to form a dark hooded figure. The spirit’s face is shrouded, but Jesse knows his identity just from the way he stands.

“Commander? Gabe? Is that you?!” but his visitor remains unmoved. “Speak to me! I’ve spent so many nights praying to God to see you again, and now that you’re here you won’t speak… Why?”

The specter moves its head slightly, but gives no words, and Jesse continues: “We don’t follow orders for the sake of following orders, so you can drop the whole Ghost-of-Christmas-Future routine.”

The office door swings open suddenly, clipping through the ghost who scatters like snow and reforms outside. Jesse’s hostdoes not coerce him out, but staying in the office did not feel like an option. Out in the main office space,McCree’s employees are having some sort of Christmas party, odd because he would never allow that to happen.

“No one went to his funeral,” one remarks.

“He wasn’t even found for ten days, until a neighbor reported the smell.”

“How did he die?”

“I don’t know. No one printed an obituary about it, but he was a drunk, so.” A dismissive shrug.

“We only found out because my brother dug his grave.”

“So is it true that he was buried with all of his money?”

Cruel laughter. “Heaven’s no. No one cared enough to execute his will, anyways, so it all went to charity.”

“The only good thing that bastard ever did was die,” you say coldly. Jesse touches his chest, the last icy part of his heart shattered at hearing your brutal honesty.

“I thought you had feelings for him?”

You unscrew the cap on your flask, to which the other’s laugh, replying after a long drink,“He did nothing but insult, tease, and demean me for years when I was nothing but kind to him. I learned to hate him ages ago. Good riddance and pity to the devil for having to deal with him.”

Jesselooks to the figure in black, hoping to hear a soothing word or any at all, but the specter does not even meet his gaze. The rejection cuts him so thoroughly that he flees from both of you, running outside as quickly as he can. The cold air does not clear his mind. The dark shadow is already waiting for him at this scene, unlike the street the building was on, and much more like a graveyard or a construction site.

“So is it true? Was he buried with his money?” the woman calls downto the bottom of the grave

“Nope, and what’s more, he already been robbed,” the Omnic shouts back, throwing the shovel back up, “Dude doesn’t even have both arms.”

Knowing he couldn’t be seen, he stumbles forward, looking down to a coffin that has been cut open, a body underneath so mangled that it couldn’t be identified, but in his heart he knew it was him. The woman helps up her friend, the two of them singing Christmas carols off-key as they left, while the man clasps his hands together is desperate prayer.

“Please Jesus, I know You’ve been trying to teach me to love again… You surrounded me with friends, You sent me a beautiful angel to check on me… I didn’t ‘ppreciate none of it, but please, Lord Almighty, if You could forgive me enough for one more chance, I promise I will make up for all of my sins, and celebrate Christmas with all my heart. Please Jesus, I can’t let it end like this.”

* * *

When Jesse wakes at his desk, he cannot get to his phone quickly enough. 6:00AM, 25-12. He scrambles to his contacts, not squandering a single second more to apologize to the one he had saved as “Cleaning Lady” in his phone. Even as he dials, he holds his breath. There’s no reason for you to answer; it may already be too late.

“Hello?” you answer cautiously from your bedside, bracing for another verbal attack. When he says your name, it’s unlike any other time he’s said it, soft and sweet like a pillow for his racing heart to rest on.

“I am so sorry ‘bout the way I’ve been acting. All this time, I had a bonafide angel watchin’ over me, and all I did was belittle and demean her. I know it’s asking a lot, but if you could find it in your heart to forgive me, I would love to join you for openin’ presents today.”

“I would love that. I have two presents for you, actually.”

“I- I still have to buy yours, but I _promise_ I’ll bring one- two! I need to go home, and shower- uh-” he stands suddenly and whines in pain, his back aching from sleeping on his desk.

“Are you okay?” you ask, your voice dripping with sweet concern, “Don’t feel like you have to rush around. I’m still in bed.”

“I don’t want to keep you waiting,” he says as he scrambles around to shut down his computer and get out of the door.

“I’ve waited very long for this day; I can wait a few hours longer.” Those words fill his heart so fully all he can do for a moment is stand and smile. “Jesse?”

“Yes, angel?” he answers softly.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas!” he replies. Hearing noise out in the office, he quickly tells you his plans to meet you at eight and says his good-byes. With sparkling eyes and a heart full of love, Jesse skips into the office declaring, “Everyone! It’s Christmas, take he day off, paid! I am and so should everyone else!” to all the early birds.

The employees remained perplexed in their seats until he’s coaxed them all up and out the door saying, “I should have given you more paid time off this year!” A latecomer panics, seeing the man lock the door with the last of the bewildered employees lingering, but Jesse says, “Fired? On Christmas?! Absolutely not!” and he laughs all the way down the stairs, he small heart overrun with love.

Finally inside his bitter cold apartment, he turns up the thermostat, and finally allows himself the luxury of hot water. He washes his hair three times, wondering if his rations on shampoo had really been a result of cheapness or perhaps, more likely, a serious depression. That didn’t matter now. What mattered was he felt lighter, and he had a plan to keep this wonderful feeling inside of him.

Having finally dressed in fresh clothes, which admittedly looked like every other outfit he owned, Jesse has started to build some kind of confidence. On the way out the door to buy a gift, he checks his phone to find a text from Genji.

6:13: “Didn’t see you last night. Hoping you’re coming out today!”

Jesse’s stomach flips in guilt, but he replies honestly at 6:41: “A friend of mine asked me to open gifts with her.”

6:41:“What kind of friend?”

“I’m… not… sure…” he murmurs out loud as he types it out. His keys are in his hand, he needs to lock the door and get moving, but he cannot ignore his brother-in-arms anymore. Despite years of refusing to acknowledge him, here Jesse was, receiving no less than eleven different winking and blushing emojis from Genji, as if they had never stopped speaking.

Jesse locks the door and types out: “I’m sure it’s not like that.”

6:42: “okay :)”

6:42: ‘if you’re free later, come down. I miss you”

“I miss you too. I’ll be down at some point, I promise…...been too long.”

“Bring your friend,” and there was an uncomfortably long stream of pleasant smiles after that, reminding McCree not to get ahead of himself. He hadn’t even bought your gift yet…

/ / /

You lift your phone to check the time, catching the exact moment that the minute rolled over to eight AM, and the precise moment when there was a knock at the door.

When you open the door, you say to him jokingly, “Were you waiting for eight on-the-dot to knock?”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, swallowing nervously.

“Oh, Mr. McCree, I’m so sorry, you could’ve come in earlier!”

“No need to apologize. I figured with how I been actin’ these last five years, I didn’t want to be pushin’ my luck,” he replies as he walks inside with his two gifts.

“Let me help you with those so you can get your shoes off and get properly settled in,” you say, “Would you like any tea or cinnamon rolls, Mr. McCree?”

“You can call me Jesse,” he says bashfully, taking off his hat and hanging it on the same hook as his snow covered serape. “and no ma’am, but thank you.”

“Jesse,” you say from the next room. You glance back at him, having very rarely seen him anywhere but behind a desk, and damn does he clean up _well._ You skillfully hide the gift you had bought on his behalf, and set down the ones he brought in its place.

“You have a very beautiful home,” he says from the doorway.

You smile, kneeling next to the tree, illuminated in soft light… he would never forget it, nor how shyly you say, “Come here and open presents!”

He steps in cautiously, not feeling worthy to be in such a warm and cozy space, but you’re still beckoning him forward. Sitting on the floor across from you felt so intimate, having not allowed himself any closeness in the last five years. Cheeks rosy and unable to hide his broad smile, Jesse quickly diverts your attention by saying, “Here. I know you’ll like this one ‘cause we talked about it.”

You didn’t even realize he was listening all these years, making unwrapping the gift all the more exciting.

“Thank you!” you say immediately, “I’ve wanted these headphones for _hot_ minute!”

“I’m glad you like them!” he says, a nervous weight leaving his chest.

“Your turn!” you say, handing him a familiar red package.

It doesn’t matter that he knows what’s inside. He can feel all the warmth and care you put into picking out a nice bottle of whiskey, with two tumbler glasses no less. It’s much nicer than anything he ever allowed himself and he wonders if he’ll ever afford himself a sip of it.

“Do you like it?” you ask, unsure how to take his dreamy gaze.

“Yes! Thank you! Thank you. I’m sorry, ma’am, I am out-of-practice with my manners.”

“It’s okay!” you say brightly, giving him levity that touched his cold, aching bones.

“This is for you,” he says, handing you a small box scarcely bigger than your palm. “I- I’ll return it if you don’t like it. Actually-”

He tries to take it back, but you’re as defensive as you are curious. “I want to see it!”

You start to unwrap it, and the man rambles: “I don’t want you to think this means you have to do anything for me.”

“Jesse,” you say, captivated by the jewelry box. You open it, revealing a delicate gold chain with three stars suspended from it. At first you’re so stunned, you don’t know what to say except to murmur thank yous a thousand times over. Jesse offers to help you put it on, and you agree, face burning as his calloused hands brush the back of your neck.

“Jesse, this is beautiful,” you say, touching it tenderly.

“It’s the least I could do for you.”

You tackle him with a hug, almost squeezing the life out of him. He returns the hug, hardly feeling he deserved it but unable to deny how well you fit into his embrace, like you’ve always belonged there. Your self-control tells you you’re at risk of cracking a rib, eventually forcing you to let go and face him.

“Thank you!” you say one more time.

“I should be the one thanking you,” he says. “I was insufferably mean and you looked out fer me in a way I did not deserve.”

“Well… keep that in mind when you open this,” you say, handing him the last present, “You have to _promise_ me you won’t get mad.”

Whatever joke or prank you have in store for him was well-deserved; he answers with a big smile, “I promise.”

With your hand still on the present you add. “I think you’re ready for these again.”

“Okay,” he replies more solemnly, now certain whatever sucker punch he was being served should be taken in stride. The wrapping paper falls to the ground, revealing a box with a lid, which he carefully pulls up, wondering what the chances are that you both got each other jewelry. However, the contents of that box were more valuable than gold.

“When I first started cleaning your office, I found these pictures torn up in your trash. I don’t know what they mean, or who they are of, but I know you’re hurting without them…”

He had missed these pictures often, having destroyed the last photos he had of his Blackwatch days in a drunken rage long, long ago. His eyes fill with tears and you’re in his arms again, this time soothing him as dropsstream down his face.For the first time, he shows all of this grief to someone else, and the weight leaves his chest instead of burrowing itself deeper inside of him.

Still in your care, he murmurs, “You’ve done more for me t’day than I’ve done for myself in years.”

“You were hurting. I know what that’s like.”

“I promise you that I’m gonna go back to the doctor and get things sorted so they don’t get this bad ever again,” he says, now breaking away from the hug.

“And talk to people, maybe?”

“Well, I did tell my friend I would see him later today. There’s a big Christmas party goin’ on at another friend’s place in London.”

“That sounds like fun!” you say.

“You’re invited actually.”

“I would love to go,” but you see some hesitation in him. Even with a total one-eighty, you can imagine he’s a bit shy about showing his face again. “It’s still early though! Let’s watch a few Christmas specials and mosey down later! I have cinnamon rolls!”

The two of you are so warm, nestled together on the couch, that he never thought he would break apart. Even so, it was worth it to lose that warmth and see you in your nice party dress and cute thermal leggings. Even if you were properly warm, he insists that you wear gloves on your short walk to Winston’s lab, but you wink and say that was your excuse to hold his hand. Suddenly, he wishes that it was much further than the five blocks that he never could be bothered to walk.

“We’re here,” he says, staring at the entrance. He glances down at his shoes, noting how they sank into the snow.

You squeeze his hand. “I’m excited. You ready?”

“I was born ready!” he replies with a bravado he wished he had.

Athena’s voice calls out from the speaker, “Welcome, Jesse!”

He explains “That’s Athena, and she’s the only normal one of us.”

With that in mind, you still were not prepared for an Omnic with a human face to tackle Jesse as soon as he got both feet inside, calling out, “Friend! Friend! Friend!” over and over, lifting Jesse in the air.

“Geez, Genj! Take it easy!” he protests.

Genji puts him on the floor, saying, “Oh yeah! Don’t wanna embarrass you in front of your girlfriend.”

Part of Jesse wants to argue that word, but it’s not like he’s personally against it so he just mutters something to himself while you introduce yourself.

“Jesse! It’s been ages!” a woman says, and then she flat out disappears, reappearing in the blink of an eye. “I thought my calibrator was off, but _it is_ really you! It’s a Christmas miracle”

The gorilla in the background casually chatting with guests has you feeling a little dazed. Genji leads you to the drink table with Lena takes McCree to the crowd of people who are trying to politely wait for their turn to mob Jesse in affection.

“Thank you,” Genji says as you pour out some whiskey for your date.

“Huh?”

“For convincing him to come.”

“I think he wanted to come, but he just needed someone on his side,” you say, beginning your own drink.

“Well, still, I was worried,” Genji says, “and now… I am not. So thank you.”

“Thank you for inviting me,” you say, “but I better get back to him.”

You scurry across the room with two glasses, parting the crowd that has formed around the man, declaring “whiskey, neat” before handing him his glass.

“You know me well,” he says, grateful for the reprieve.

“A toast!” Wilhelm declares, and everyone raises their glasses, “God bless us, every one!”

“Here, here!” everyone calls back, drinking to many more Christmases full of laughter, friends, and love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! 
> 
> I never write fluff bc irl I'm not about it but Jesse McCree deserves all the lovins let's be real.
> 
> This was a fun exercise in trying to write in another author's style. I... could not be nearly as verbose as dickens though. The original word count was like a little under 20k though, and to hell with that. Brevity is the soul of wit.
> 
> I actually had this idea last year, but I couldn't figure out who I wanted Ghost Marley to be, since it had to be someone Scrooge knew when he was alive, and did bad things with. I guess I just had to wait until the character Ashe was introduced.


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